Night Hawk'S Bride (Tyler) (Harlequin Historical Series, No 558) Read Online Free PDF Page A

man.
    â€œI’m pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Miss Lafayette. Your father has spoken often of your teaching achievements.”
    â€œAchievements?” Leave it to her father to make teaching English sound like she’d negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. “I’m not the best teacher there is, but I am lucky to be here.”
    â€œI’m sure you’ll be a wonderful aid to your father’s work.” The major bowed slightly.
    Marie noticed her father’s face was hidden mostlyby the papers he was studying. But his brows knit together as if he were smiling.
    Smiling! Marie grabbed her plate and stood, working hard to contain her anger. “You gentlemen appear to have business to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to it.”
    â€œMarie,” Henry warned. “You’ll stay and finish your meal at the table. This is the frontier, but that doesn’t mean we can give up any—”
    â€œGoodbye, Papa.” Marie tapped across the room, refusing to give in. “Pleasant meeting you, Major.”
    â€œAnd you, ma’am.”
    She could feel Henry’s fury all the way into the kitchen. Too bad. He wasn’t going to do this to her. She absolutely refused to allow it.
    Introducing her to the major. Next it would be an invitation to supper. Then her father would be pressuring her to marry the major. She hadn’t come here to let her father run her life, that was for sure.
    She marched down the kitchen steps and into the backyard.
    A three-foot-high split-rail fence walled in a well-tended vegetable garden and a cool patch of mowed grass. Ancient sugar maples cast long morning shadows across the yard. She spotted a log bench beneath them. It was the perfect place to enjoy her meal.
    She ate in solitude, if not exactly silence. Outside the small haven, she could hear the sounds of the soldiers beginning their busy day. Voices rang. Doors slammed. Someone—perhaps a new recruit—raced past, hidden by a row of bushes, muttering to himself that he was late again.
    A rabbit darted out from behind a clump of beets to nibble on delicate carrot greens. He lifted his chocolate-brown head, wrinkled his nose while he studied her and then returned to his breakfast.
    Marie finished hers. This strange new land wasn’t home yet. Last night she had missed her comfortable bed—the familiar feel of it, the sound of Aunt Gertrude rising to prepare breakfast, and the regular routine of their days together.
    Here in Fort Tye, there were no lending libraries, no ladies clubs and no supper theater. But Marie watched a finch light on a limb of the sweet-leafed sugar maple, and a sense of rightness filled her like heaven’s touch.
    Happiness was awaiting her. She could feel it.
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    Night Hawk’s entire body screamed with exhaustion as he hauled fresh water from the well. The two huge buckets felt like boulders as he emptied first one and then the other into the trough.
    The bay mare in the corral with him nickered softly to her newborn foal and gratefully dipped her nose into the water. It had been a long night and a tough morning, but Joy had brought forth a strong foal. The tiny filly walked at her dam’s flank, her knobby knees threatening to buckle. Her bristle-brush mane ruffled in the wind as she nursed.
    The big black dog napping in the shade of the house let out a single woof and climbed to his feet. Tilting his big head, he listened to the faint clip-clop of a newly shod horse.
    Night Hawk dropped the buckets. It wasn’t hisfriend, Josh Ingalls, riding over the crest of the hill. Judging by the faint jingling of a harness and the rattle of wheels, it was a buggy from the settlement. The dog wasn’t used to many visitors. Night Hawk ordered Meka to stay.
    He wasn’t surprised when one of the fort horses crested the rise, pulling the colonel’s buggy. He tried not to curse the Fates tempting him when he